Month: November 2021

Runner Bean Harvest

I planted the runner beans too late in the season — we did get some nice vines, and some lovely flowers, but by the time they were getting ready to set fruit it had already turned cool, and in the end there was only one actual pod that was large enough to harvest, yielding just four beans — hardly enough to be worth cooking, so I’ll set them aside to dry and be planted next year… hopefully a little earlier this time!

Fall Planting Draws to a Close

Over the last six weeks, I’ve planted well over 750 daffodil bulbs around the neighborhood, as well as a smaller number of other bulbs — hyacinths and grape hyacinths, two varieties of tulips, crocus and dutch iris. Nearly all of them went into sidewalk tree beds, with the remainder buried in large planters in public space.

I’m down to a few dozen bulbs that I’ll finish planting over the coming week before our first real hard freeze.

It was hard work, but with a bit of luck we’ll see lots of bright green shoots and colorful yellow flowers emerging next spring and it will all have been worthwhile.

The process of making hundreds and hundreds of six-inch-deep holes in hard-packed earth was greatly eased by use of an auger drill bit that attaches to my cordless impact driver — it’s a huge time-saver, although it does feel odd to be gardening with power tools.

During that same time, I’ve also given away more than 500 daffodil bulbs to folks who offered to plant them in other parts of the neighborhood, or further afield, such as the few dozen that went to Brooklyn and the hundred that went to an abandoned lot next to a public school in Patterson NJ.

Along the way, I’ve also sprinkled more than a dozen tree beds with assorted late-blooming wildflower seeds — mostly gathered during a trip to the Hudson Valley at the end of the summer, supplemented by a few bulk seed packets from Everwilde Farms. With a little luck, some of those will survive the winter snows and sprout next spring, although I don’t yet know how successful they’ll be.

Late Night Planting

How is this my life? Planting daffodil bulbs at night, in the rain.

Total of ten sidewalk treebeds successfully planted tonight, with between one and four dozen daffodil bulbs each, plus a sprinkling of wildflower seeds from a field in the Hudson Valley that we visited this summer. Thank goodness I’m almost done with the autumn planting!